Sound Barrier
by RainbowDashFanClub
Summary: Based on the TAPS song comes a story that sets out to over-analyze the MLP universe. It sets out to treat MLP as if it all actually existed on an Earth-like planet. But there is a power struggle that is beginning when Rainbow is rendered no longer capable of flight.
1. Part 1

It was a flash. An instantaneous memory. She saw herself, in the hospital room that had been her prison after the terrible crash into the Everfree that had shattered both her wings and her dreams of ever getting into the Wonderbolts, as the doctors had insisted that the damage to all her wing-bones was irreparable.

She watched herself receive the news, for as soon as she was conscious and able to understand the doctors' words they had told her. They had felt that she had the right to know, despite how much pain it would cause her. But she didn't react by bawling like a foal. She had kept a straight face, and when the doctor said that she would in all likelihood never fly again without magical assistance (the flight equivalent of a wheelchair), she had replied, "Okay. Anything else?" The doctors had solemnly said no, and left the room. Only after she was alone with her closest friend, Fluttershy, did she start to cry. Her cries weren't loud. They were near-silent, though the tears were enough to cry a literal river, or perhaps several clouds' worth of rain. And Fluttershy, the kind friend she was, just held her.

"Rainbow Dash?" asked a very familiar voice, "Rainbow, are you listening?"

"Oh. Sorry Twi. I'm here. Just spacing out a bit... What's up?"

"The better question would be 'what isn't up', and the _answer_ would be _you_."

"I know... I know... I just... I don't _wanna_ do flight therapy, Twi. I don't like being handicapped."

Twilight looked annoyed at first, then sympathetic, then contemplative, and then finally she looked back to Rainbow and smiled. "Here. Rainbow. Fly with me. We'll sit on that cloud up there."

"Fine... but, um... y'know..." she gestured vaguely in the direction of her wings, barely held closed despite the fact that this should be their natural state. The muscles had just been so badly damaged.

"I know, Rainbow. I'll assist you." Her horn began to glow a violet-magenta shade, and temporarily Rainbow's wings worked even half as well as they used to. She beat them and they lifted her from the ground, but she couldn't enjoy being airborne anymore. It was just a painful reminder of what had once been.

The two friends made their way to the cloud. Twilight was fairly slow normally, but she slowed up some more to wait for Rainbow (who felt horrible and detested that she was the one slowing someone else up when she'd spent the majority of her life having the opposite happen). When they arrived, Twilight settled down and made room for her friend. Her horn stopped glowing. Rainbow had more than enough magic still to keep her aloft on a cloud. Rainbow let her wings hang limply at her sides, something she wasn't used to doing even when she was at her worst after a strenuous workout. But though it felt weird it was still better than trying to keep them upright.

"What did you want to say, Twi?"

"Oh, nothing terribly important."

"They why'd you drag me up here?"

"Well, I have something to tell you. I was doing some reading earlier today... Rainbow don't roll your eyes like that... I found a piece of complex magic that might be interesting to you. It allows an alicorn to give some of their magic, of any variety, to any other pony they wish. Since alicorns get their supernaturally long lifespans from a set of magically-activated rapidly replenishing enzymes that restore cells to a previous, healthier state, an alicorn can transfer some of those cells - magically of course, it wouldn't work with standard instruments such as the variety you'd use to draw blood or administer intravenous medicines, that's already been tried under Celestia's sanction - to an injured pony in order to replenish their injury. Basically, I'd be giving up some of my alicorn-ness to heal you."

"How in Equestria is that not important?! That would... that could... give me back my flight... I could do a rainboom again..."

"Hold it, Rainbow. It's not that simple. If it were, trust me, I would have done it already. The spell is crazy complex, and in addition, it requires a password that only Celestia knows. And since she's been gone the past four months..."

"Oh. But she's getting back tomorrow..."

"Which is what I was going to ask. Would you be willing to go with me to Canterlot so we can talk to Princess Celestia? I can't make any promises, or guarantees, or even a strong probability that this will work. It's a slim chance at best. But it is your only hope, at risk of sounding like a storybook hero's guide."

"Then I accept! What kinda dolt do you take me for, Twi? If there's even a _chance_ of getting my flight back, I'm in!"

 **The next chapter will be posted in ten minutes.**


	2. Part 2

Canterlot, referred to (by poets, if no-one else) as The City on the Mountain, was initially inhabited purely by unicorns when no other race had the means nor the reason to build such a city. Before it was the home of the ruling sisters' palace and before it was the Ritzy high-society place-to-be, it was a mining city, created as a base for those unicorns (almost certainly descendants of Princess Platinum) who went out in search of the precious gemstones that formed uniquely inside these mountains. After that, pegasi and earth ponies came around to see the Princesses, and some stayed, but it remained primarily unicorn-inhabited even to present day.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight were both instantly confronted with this fact as they arrived. For Twilight, it was the feeling a native of a racially uniform country who has been in a racially diverse one gets when they come back home. For Rainbow, however, the opposite occurred. She had, true, been raised in Cloudsdale, but then she had wandered the countryside after graduating Flight Academy with little to do but try and find something to do since the road to becoming a Wonderbolt didn't seem straightforward at all. And during this time she had met not just ponies but griffons and dragons as well. So she was very used to racial diversity to the greatest extent. And as such a city nearly entirely inhabited by unicorns was new and odd, even despite her having been there several times (the world was kind of ending then, it was no time to be looking around).

In this City on the Mountain, Celestia was setting her sun. Twilight led Rainbow through that was more familiar to her than the back of her hoof to a hotel. This was a nice one that knew Twilight well, when she would go up to Canterlot for whatever reason (that the world was in imminent danger was usually the reason), this was the one she booked. It had great service, nice rooms, and plenty of space for Rainbow to keep to herself. Twilight knew that the cyan pegasus liked to do this as of late. And she could hardly blame her.

They arrived at the hotel room and Rainbow immediately went to her room. Twilight presumed she went to sulk. Twilight went to hers to read a few books. Celestia knew that her pupil wanted to see her, but since it wasn't world-changing crucial, it had to wait until that weekend. Two more days. Plenty of time to read fourteen books, with perhaps some time to spare.

"Have you heard what happened to Rainbow Dash?" The whisper that could have been more hushed of a surprised stallion.

"Oh yes, truly tragic, I was sure she would be winning next year's Best Young Fliers. Eh, I suppose that's the way the cookie crumbles." The responding voice with a much more controlled whisper of a hard-spoken older stallion.

"And I heard she was on the Wonderbolts' list of candidates for acceptance into their trainee flight, you know, she passed that history test and all." A soft-spoken yet uptight middle-aged mare.

"You read that article too? Oh, awesome! Did you read the article in Elements Weekly about the details of her injury? She can't even fly without magical assistance! Ha, my son can fly better than her and he's a unicorn!" A haughty young mare.

"Don't make fun of her, she's obviously going through a lot of pain right now." The first mare.

"C'mon, why should we care? Not our problem that poor Dash is a dodo now." The second.

Rainbow kept her head down as she walked with Twilight through the streets of Canterlot. However, an alicorn princess and a pegasus tended to attract attention just based on their races, let alone Rainbow's prismatic mane. A few years ago, Rainbow would have gladly accepted the attention. It meant a chance to show off her flight skills. Now, she no longer had any such skills to speak of, and her mane was a source of ridicule and gawking.

When the two arrived at the palace, after a seeming eternity of pitying stares that tried their best not to look like pitying stares and hushed derogatory whispers that tried their best not to sound like hushed derogatory whispers, the guards recognized them and allowed them entrance. They walked through the hallways and arrived in the throne room. Celestia and Luna were sitting upon their thrones expectantly.

Rainbow bowed out of not-yet-unlearned habit. Twilight just walked calmly up to Celestia.

"Celestia?" she began, pulling a thick dusty spell book from apparent thin air, her horn beginning to glow as she did so and held it before her mentor, "Here. Page 1004."

Celestia flipped through the tome, carefully studying the runes upon its pages. Rainbow had looked at them before, and they had been to her pointless- and random-looking chicken-scratches. But the Princess was looking upon them with great interest after she had found the page she had been searching for.

After she had finished reading, she looked up and said, perhaps a bit more gravely than was necessary, "This spell is complex, Twilight, even to me. It will take spaced intervals over great periods of time, and in between them, even after her wings look to be fully healed, she must not fly, or the spell will not take effect at all, and furthermore, we shan't get another chance to cast it. Even with these precautions in place, it may refuse to cooperate regardless."

Rainbow Dash butted in there. "I understand that, Princess. But think about the alternatives! I wouldn't be able to fly, at all, ever!"

Then Celestia smiled one of her regal Princess smiles. Her light violet eyes still remained sad, as they always were, but the corners of her mouth turned up. It was like a fake smile one puts on for a camera, yet this was the only smile that either of them had ever seen the Sun Princess have. "I didn't say no, Rainbow."

"YES!" Rainbow exclaimed, jumping high into the air and pumping a hoof though she didn't move her wings. "Thank you so much, Princess!" She began to bounce around in little circles, then stopped, staring Celestia right in the eyes, a watered-down version of her determined fire resided in her own as she did so. "After this, if it works, anything I have that you want, anything at all, and it's yours. Kay?"

Suddenly the Princess went serious again.

Twilight expected her to say, "That will not be necessary, Rainbow Dash, but thank you for the offer," with one of her regal Princess smiles.

Rainbow expected her to say something similar, though her interpretation of how Celestia might phrase it was a little off.

What Celestia actually said, without a hint of a Princess smile evident in her somber expression, was thus:

"Hm... I may take you up on that at some point in the future, Rainbow."

 **The next chapter will be posted in ten minutes.**


	3. Part 3

Twilight sat, back in her hotel room, veiled in her own thoughts. Before Rainbow and herself had been escorted from the throne room by a pair of guards as the next ponies to see the royal sisters entered, Celestia had said something entirely out of character and Twilight needed to know why. Part of why she was such an excellent student was that she was perpetually asking questions, and the reason for this was her insatiable curiosity. So when her mentor had spoken the words, "I may take you up on that at some point in the future", her mind had instantly gone into rational thought mode. And it had been that way for the past two days, grasping at straws.

Rainbow had been sulking a lot less recently. She was, for the first time since her wings had been broken, hopeful. Twilight noticed her talking more. And the second night, the night before they got Celestia to perform the first round of the spell and authorize it with her password, Rainbow actually agreed when Twilight had asked her to go to dinner with her.

"This is a great restaurant, Rainbow. It has the best daisy burgers I've ever tasted."

"And they have something other than daisy burgers and hay fries? I'm an athlete, Twi, even if I can't fly anymore. If they have a wheat grass salad then I'm game."

"Don't worry, they do. I was about to tell you about how great their desserts are, but since you're an athlete, like you said..."

"Well, maybe I can get a little something. I'll be flying again soon, it's cause for celebration."

Then Twilight got serious. "Rainbow, that's not a guarantee. Or even a high probability. You know that."

The lame pegasus sighed. "Yeah yeah, I know that Twi." A moment's pause that somehow felt like longer than it was. "So what're those desserts like?"

Twilight decided to let it go. "Well, they have a great cloud cake. And they have this thing, it's called a s'more sundae, and it's probably the unhealthiest thing you'll ever eat!" Her sentence ended with her breaking into a giggle.

Rainbow smiled. "I think I'll get one of those!" Her sentence also ended with a break into a giggle.

And the two friends giggled together until they were there, standing in the middle of the Canterlot street, surrounded by gawking, whispering ponies, laughing their heads off with no concern for those other ponies. The gawking just seemed meaningless now.

"Man am I stuffed..." Rainbow half-complained, half-complimented.

"Yeah, so am I... let's go back to the hotel. Our flight takes off tomorrow morning after we go to Celestia."

"Ugh... when are we getting up..." This wasn't a question so much as a groan at the prospect of getting up at all in any of the hours called "morning" that would have liked to pretend it was a question.

Twilight, however, went along with the groan's pretend and answered it like a question, "Six a.m..."

"Oh Celestia help us."

"She's already doing that."

"Well then I'll ask Luna for help."

"She's already doing that."

Rainbow then let out a long, perhaps slightly exaggerated sigh. "Nobody's gonna help us then."

"Nope."

"Buck."

Rainbow had set an alarm, a wake-up call, and another wake-up call just in case. These were what woke her, in some combination or another. She was a pegasus, and she healed quickly, so a hangover would be no problem. And she hadn't even gotten that drunk. Twilight, however, had 1) drank far more than Rainbow and 2) not drunken enough in the past such that she might be fine having drank as much as she did. So Rainbow, though with a slight pounding in her head like a very small cave troll was clubbing her forehead and a moderate nausea in her stomach that wasn't unlike every other hangover she'd had before, was fine. But she expected her friend to be a different story.

Twilight woke to Rainbow shaking her and whispering in her ear, though this was a bit too loud for Twilight still: "Twilight... Twilight, wake up... we have to go to Celestia... it's 5:15... you have half an hour to get ready..."

"Ugh..." Twilight said, uncoordinatedly reaching for a pillow and shoving it over her face, "I don't want to..."

"Fine, I'll go to Celestia by myself," Rainbow replied, getting up and walking away slowly to give Twilight plenty of time to say what Rainbow knew she was about to.

"Wait, Rainbow, you can't do that..."

"So?"

"So I need to be... ah... with you..." Twilight was forcing herself from the covers and the bed, clutching a hoof to her head, "I'm... coming... give me a... ow... bit... I'm..."

"Hung over. Yes. I know. Isn't there a spell for that?"

"There's a s-spell f-for... everything... Rainbow... and if there isn't we invent one... as needed... that's the nice and useful thing about..." she tapped her horn with a surprising amount of coordination for a pony with a hangover, though she was gentle enough not to hurt her foreleg in the process, "...these."

"Yeah. I know."

"Hey Rainbow... h-how much... do you know... about what these thingies really are?"

"They're magic, Twilight. All books on magic are useless to me. Pegasus, remember? Just cause I can't fly doesn't mean I sprouted a horn."

"N-no... they're more than that."

There was a pause. 'More than that?', thought Rainbow, 'That makes no sense. Horns are magic conductors. That's what they do. Magic is like, some kind of weird thing in the atmosphere that lets unicorns levitate stuff and teleport and whatever else unicorns can do. How could they be "more than that"? What kind of "more" was Twilight even talking about?! Supposing horns could do more than just magic, what can they do? Supposing she's talking about the physical sensitive forehead protrusion made of alicorn, what's "more" about it than what it looks like? A horn looks like a horn, pretty much.'

"What?" Rainbow asked very quietly.

'Wait a second,' Rainbow's thoughts continued, since her lack of ability to fly came about, she had found another outlet for her memorization of every minute detail in her vicinity and theorizing about those minute details, and now such thought patterns came naturally regardless of what she was doing at the time, 'Twilight is painfully and dreadfully hung over. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that she's delusional.'

"Huh?" Twilight thankfully asked.

"Oh, nothing. Get ready. We're leaving in..." she checked the clock, it was 6:22, so she did the mental math, "23 minutes."

"O-okay, Rainbow..." Twilight staggered to her hooves, "I'm... getting..."

On the second floor of Canterlot Castle, an extremely hung-over Twilight and a Rainbow Dash with a slight headache entered together. The beautifully carven magnolia wood door had been ajar as though welcoming them in.

Celestia was at her desk. "Sit down," she commanded, and they both sat. "This will be the first of many of these meetings, and this will be the easiest and fastest of all of them. But I still require Twilight to pay attention and give up pieces of her magic when necessary. Twilight? Are you listening?"

"Ah... Princess... please... quiet down..." Twilight said in a whisper, "I can do that, but don't be... so loud..."

"I was not being excessively loud, Twilight."

"She's hung over," Rainbow informed Celestia, who then nodded, "We had a little celebratory dinner and she had a bit too much to drink. Is there a spell for that?"

"Yes. Created by Berry Pinch to help with her mother's iterative hangovers. It is not difficult. I can do it now if you wish."

"Sure. I'd like my normal friend back."

Celestia nodded and her horn glowed for a few seconds. A much more interesting change was occurring in Twilight, however. First her eyes snapped from half-lidded, as though she were falling asleep, to wide open and bright. Her ears perked up. She energetically stood up from her seat after having a look like she had just woken up from a nap. After the energetic standing motion, she looked vaguely surprised at her sheer amount of energy, not having been expecting it. Her horn glowed for a fraction of an instant, giving off a few infinitesimal sparks before ceasing to be of interest. She then experienced something of a full-body shiver, and after that she turned to Rainbow as though she had never been drunk or hung over in the first place.

"Rainbow, what just happened?" Twilight asked, incidentally radiating an aura of purity.

"The Princess removed your hangover apparently." Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck with her right hoof. "Not sure how, but..."

Suddenly Twilight's eyes went wide. "Did I tell you anything weird while I was drunk?!"

Rainbow was assuming that her friend meant confessions of attraction or dancing on tables. "Not really, Twi."

Then Twilight relaxed. "Oh, good. Um, this might sound weird or trivial, but did I say anything about magic not actually being magic?"

"Nothing like THAT, no. Y' said something, like, you pointed at your horn and you were like, 'this isn't what you think it is' or some such. I can't remember how you said it."

There was a look on the violet unicorn's face, as though she were deciding over something.

"Anything wrong, Twi?"

"No. Not a thing." She turned very deliberately to Celestia. "Thank you."

Celestia gave a regal-looking nod. "Are you prepared to proceed, Rainbow?"

'It's the easiest one,' Rainbow thought to herself, 'There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.' In the back of her mind, she was wondering why she was even consoling herself about it.

"Yeah."

 **The next chapter will be posted in ten minutes.**


	4. Part 4

Rainbow woke at the crack of dawn. It was finally time for her next appointment. She had been waiting a whole month for this. As a rather impatient sort of pegasus, she had found even this wait neigh-impossible to endure. But she had endured it.

'To-do...' she ran down the list in her head in fractions of seconds... 'But first, wake up Twilight.'

Twilight was woken by the sunlight streaming into her window. To be specific, she was actually woken by the sudden lack thereof as a certain pony blocked the light's entrance. So Twilight then got up from her comfy bed rather reluctantly.

"Rainbow..."

A light rapping on the glass as the cyan pegasus's mouth moved in absence of any actual noise.

Twilight telekinetically opened the window. Rainbow walked in. "Ah, thanks Twi! Y'know you have to get up, for my next thingy with the Princess, right? You haven't forgotten right?"

"Of course not, Rainbow. How could I?" Twilight sighed, trotting down the library stairs. "Why did you go in the window? And how?"

"Just cause I can't fly doesn't mean I can't climb," Rainbow responded with a shrug, "Anyway the door was locked."

"Oh. I told Spike to get up and open it but..." the violet unicorn glanced at the purple-and-green baby dragon sitting in his small yet comfortable bed in the corner of the gleaming crystal room, "He doesn't always like getting up early."

"Make that, he never likes getting up early, and I'll agree. Me personally, I get up way early every day. Weather has to be in place before anypony's up y'know. And some ponies get up crazy early. Like Sugarcube Corner, that place is open at 6. So of course Pinkie's up then. And sometimes those Cutie-Mark-Less Crusaders or whatever they call themselves are up then too. So o'course the weather has to be in place by 4. And lemme tell ya, Twilight, 4 a.m. is not a fun time to get up every morning."

"So that's why you nap?!" Twilight was actually rather surprised by this. She tried not to let it show in her voice, but she failed.

"Course." Rainbow ignored Twilight's surprised tone and said this as though it were the most obvious thing in the history of Equestria.

"Hey Twi, I have a question," Rainbow said as Twilight went and got herself a quick breakfast that required minimal amounts of cooking anything, as Twilight was in the Sweetie Belle category of cooking in that she could burn juice.

"Yes Rainbow?"

"So I've been thinking - yes I think, Twi - about magic and stuff. How does it work?"

"It's magic, Rainbow. Even if I tried to explain it to you, you'd be lost within instants."

"Maybe I might'a been lost when I had my flight and had better stuff to be doing, but I don't really anymore. Lay it on me." Rainbow made an oddly exaggerated hoof gesture and Twilight had to make herself remember that Rainbow was a performance athlete and thus had large, exaggerated gestures by nature.

Twilight sighed, seeming to be worried still about something, as though her explanation would break Rainbow's brain or something of the sort. "Fine. Basically, magic works by... um... well it utilizes my thought patterns and influences the world accordingly, basically."

"You haven't lost me yet, Twi. Don't worry. Hey, when Tirek took over everything he was able to steal magic from pegasi and earth ponies too. That means we have magic! Though mine would'a let me fly, and say AJ's would'a let her be so crazy strong so she can rival me, we still have magic. Am I right?"

"Well, yes, Rainbow, you are correct that unicorns and alicorns are not the only ones with magic. Otherwise, how would you expect to fly with those tiny little wings? They're far smaller, comparatively, than griffon or dragon wings. You have noticed this of course, right?" Twilight had, after some thought, taken a bagel from the cabinet and spread some cream cheese on it as she spoke. After she finished this question she took a bite.

"Yeah, course, Twi. Recently, but yeah. I know how my magic works, pretty much. Doesn't work according to the usual laws of gravity and inertia after I do a rainboom though. What's with that?"

"Um, I don't actually know that..."

"Ponyfeathers. If you don't know it it's in a book. And if it's in a book you can know it in like five minutes. So tell me."

"...fine..." Twilight sighed, putting down her bagel, "But you have to promise not to tell anypony about this, okay? This is really, really important. Absolutely imperative."

"Uh, what's so important about it? I mean I'll promise whatever you like, you're my friend, Twi, of course I will. But I don't know what's so important. No-one but me can do a rainboom."

"Nobody else has had any reason to have rainbows stream out of their flank. But lemme tell you something. Rainbooms are not just surpassing the sound barrier. Rainbooms are tapping into a significant amount of magic. Specifically, alicorn magic. The variety that I and the other Princesses have. Rainbow, that is unparalleled power. Celestia is the only other pony who has even a chance of having done a sonic rainboom before, and it's why her mane turned from pink to pastel rainbow."

"I-Is that... the reason I could catch Rarity, along with all three of those Wonderbolts... at the Best Young Fliers thing...?"

"Yes, Rainbow. That was alicorn magic. There would have been absolutely no other way for you to catch all of them like that. It would have been, not impossible, but neigh-infinitely improbable. Do you understand how many ponies, pegasus ponies especially, fast racing pegasus ponies more especially, would want that much power?!"

'Yes I can. I absolutely can. I understand why she'd want to keep this a secret. Not all ponies are like me, not all ponies would use that power for good...' Rainbow thought, 'But... I still don't like that she's keeping secrets... I wonder what other secrets she's keeping...'

Rainbow nodded. "Hey Twi? Is there... anything else? Like, anything else like that? Stuff you haven't told me? We're friends so there's no reason you wouldn't tell me, if I asked, right?" She gave her alicorn friend a pleading look.

'The only other ponies who know are the Princesses. She isn't ready to know. She is not ready to know this and she never will be because she never will be an alicorn. If she really wanted to find this out she could look in the same books I have been,' Twilight thought.

Then another voice popped into her head. 'If Princess Celestia had said the same thing to you that you're thinking about saying to her, you'd be just another filly prodigy and you'd never have become the Element of Magic because Celestia wouldn't have taught you anything useful. You'd have been killed by Nightmare Moon, probably.'

'...'

'Don't give me that. Tell her that you'll tell her anything she wants to know. Put up a few sound-blocking barriers and charms and enchantments first if you want to. But you have to tell her.'

'...fine.'

Twilight's horn glowed for several minutes straight, during which time Rainbow stood there looking slightly confused. After the alicorn was done, she spoke to her friend.

"We can talk now. I cast some spells so we won't be overheard. I'll answer any and all questions now. I'm sorry all these precautions have to be taken, but it's literally a matter of national security."

"...oh. Well, I, um, was just wondering what you meant when you said that your horn wasn't... actually... uh..."

"I understand what you mean. I can answer your question now..."

And from the outside of the library, even through the multiple levels of charms, enchantments and sound-blocking magical barriers, you might have been able to hear Rainbow Dash scream:

"WHAT?!"

 **The next chapter will be posted on Tuesday, May 26, at 8:00 p.m. EST.**


	5. Part 5

_Appointment #3:_

"Can I fly now?"

"No, Rainbow."

 _Appointment #4:_

"What about now? It's been-"

" _No,_ Rainbow."

 _Appointment #10:_

"Can I fly _now?!_ "

" _NO_."

" _OH COME ON!_ "

"Remember what Princess Celestia told you? NO flying. NONE."

"...fine..."

 _Final Appointment:_

Thursday.

If you want to be specific, 7:13 on Thursday morning. Rainbow Dash and Twilight had just gotten off the train to Canterlot, had just entered through the palace gates, and were currently pushing open the wooden door to Princess Celestia's office.

'This will be the most difficult of all the sessions,' a thought piped up in Rainbow's mind.

Rainbow responded to this thought. 'Yeah, I know, so what? It might be painful a bit, but nothing more than I can handle. And after this...' the thought was threatening to catch in her mind the way a word caught in your throat when you were choked up from happiness the way Rainbow most certainly was, despite how she was trying to hide it, '...I'll have my flight back!'

Her wings had been feeling stronger recently. Twilight was always warning her not to fly, but she'd been feeling really, really strong impulses to do just that. It had been everything she could do not to just jump up and take off. Her wings had been feeling stronger, and stronger still, every day. The treatment didn't work in surges; it was working every single day. She felt like she'd end up stronger than she had been before the accident.

Still, there were the implications. Her wings would never ever have any problems again. She would never again come even close to having decent competition, and the Wonderbolts would be way below her. If she tried to start a flying organization of her own - it was something she'd considered a couple of few times - she would be the undisputed leader and after she was gone the organization would have to be handed down to, Scootaloo or something. And then given _that_ little troublemaker's ability to cause destruction, even _without_ the help of her two little Crusader friends, the organization would be in shambles before her funeral was even _fully arranged_.

Further, there were the issues presented by the simple _introduction_ of alicorn magic- well, not really, but given how it worked it was darn close- into her bloodstream. She didn't know exactly, but she may or may not be functionally immortal in the same way the Princesses are. And functional immortality could get very boring very fast. Though Rainbow didn't think about this possibility for long, because after she decided to ask Twilight about it, her friend had replied that no, Rainbow would not be immortal. Oh good, Rainbow had said then.

Rainbow was snapped into reality by Celestia's sharp, yet oddly calming voice. "Rainbow Dash, are you ready?"

"Um. Oh, yes of course, Princess! Sorry I was spacing out a bit there. Just thinking about what'll happen after this..."

A royal Princess smile. "It's quite alright, Rainbow. Now, this may be a bit painful..."

Rainbow had always hated it when doctors said things like that, because it always made her tense up, and that was because she knew they were lying and she knew it would actually be very very painful. So she did her best to relax as the spell required her to do.

At first there was nothing except the faint golden glow of Celestia's horn. And then there was just the weird, mildly painful pins-and-needles sensation, not like having a limb fall asleep and then be abruptly woken, though; it was more along the lines of the sting of antiseptic in an infected wound. But Rainbow had to have antiseptic put in her infected wounds before, and she knew that as long as she ignored it, she wouldn't be in any significant pain.

But then it got worse.

It went from the tingly antiseptic sting to the full-body equivalent of that cringeworthy feeling of popping a large blister and then having something pressed against the raw skin. Still, Rainbow knew she could endure this. She'd gotten and popped blisters before, some even on the sensitive skin of her wing-joints. This was a bit worse, but not by too much.

And then it got worse still.

Trying to walk on a leg with a hairline fracture in one of the major bones that hadn't had any chance at all to heal. That stabbing, agonizing feeling, in every bone in her whole body, and somehow in her skin and muscles as well. Rainbow endured, for lack of anything better to do, and since she knew that screaming in pain would do nothing to help her situation. She gritted her teeth, grinding them against each other such that she could have ground through several chunks of iron.

And then it got worse.

At around this point, an awful lot of bad words were running through Rainbow's head.

At the point at which it felt as though she was about to snap in half as she was actively being set on fire as simultaneously she was being stabbed with several hundred knives, suddenly all the pain ceased. Nopony can quite describe the feeling of being in severe, traumatizing pain and then suddenly having it all go away in the blink of an eye. It felt astonishingly good, and a wave of warmth was simultaneously coursing through Rainbow's wings.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes. She unfolded her wings, looking at Celestia. The Princess looked exhausted, and she sat down on her royal rump with a muffled _thud_ , but she nodded at Rainbow's unspoken request to fly. And Rainbow jumped up, beating her wings a few times. The world held its breath for a few instants as the cyan wings beat, over and over-

(Twilight and Celestia's faces were both completely non-composed wide-eyed stares)

-until they stopped.

Rainbow plummeted the three feet to the hard office floor and fell on her muzzle with a heavy _thump_.

 **The next chapter will be posted Thursday, May 28, at 8:00 p.m. EST.**


	6. Part 6

A cold, eerie laugh echoed up from the deep caverns within Rainbow's mind. It started as a chuckle to a mildly funny joke Rainbow hadn't heard.

'What's so funny?' Rainbow asked her mind as the pain began to radiate through her body from where she'd fallen, literally, flat on her face. Her mouth and throat made a groaning noise without any consent from the rest of her.

The laughing seemed to get louder, a cackle now, and it was breathier. It felt as though it was originating from deep in her chest, like she was actually laughing out loud, though the only thing she was doing aloud at the moment was moaning _ow_ noises. Furthermore, the voice didn't even sound anything like her own, and nothing like anyone's that she knew.

' _What's so funny?_ ' Rainbow thought again as Twilight helped her up. Her face was completely expressionless.

It was a very odd feeling to feel as if you were laughing so hard you should have been crying, but not actually be doing so aloud. It was equally odd to feel as if you were laughing that hard and not actually be showing any emotion.

"Rainbow, are you alright?" she heard Twilight ask, but her friend seemed so far away.

"Uh-huh..." she tried to say, but even that was beyond her.

However, something did come from her mouth. It wasn't her, the words came from that voice with the cold, empty laugh. "You're annoying," the voice said through _her mouth_ and with _her vocal chords_ to _her friend_ , "You should die."

"Rainbow, are you alright?" Twilight asked her friend. She was worried, so worried. Rainbow's chest had looked to be convulsing for a few moments as she lay on the floor, her mouth curled upwards in a grin and opened as though she were laughing silently. She had helped the pegasus stand from her fall, it wasn't a fall that could have broken bones, it was a fall that _had_ \- not just could have - broken dreams. Dreams that had been revived with the rekindled hope that Rainbow had gotten from the dwindling, tiny possibility of her regaining her flight.

Twilight supposed that any second now Rainbow was going to break down crying. Perhaps she was only not doing so because the Princess was in the room, Twilight thought, however that thought was dismissed almost as rapidly as it had come. When Rainbow was broken physically she refused to cry in front of ponies. But this was different. She was broken _mentally_. And so the possibility of the rainbow-maned pegasus just bursting into tears any second hung in the air.

Rainbow's mouth moved almost immediately after Twilight asked her question, it opened and shut, and opened again, then clamped shut as though she were attempting to talk.

'What's happened?' Twilight mentally asked herself, 'Has she gone mute? She doesn't look like she's gone mute...'

Twilight's question was then answered by a voice so empty it wasn't even cold. "You're annoying. You should die."

The words had come from Rainbow's mouth, but they sounded so uncharacteristic of the brash yet rather happy cyan pony that Twilight thought she knew.

"Rainbow Dash, that does not sound like you," Celestia said sternly, "And saying such things to your friend is incredibly unkind..."

"You're loud," complained the empty voice speaking through Rainbow like a demon possessing her body, "You should die."

"Rainbow... Rainbow you need help... Rainbow, it's okay to cry you know... you don't have to get mad at everyone..." Twilight voiced these words helplessly.

The empty shell laughed at this, a cold, dark cackle that was as close to sounding Evil as Twilight had so far heard in her lifetime, and she had heard Nightmare Moon speak.

A small, sardonic piece of Twilight's brain decided to present itself with the thought, 'Well at least that thing retained the capability to be amused.'

'Shut up,' the entire rest of her brain replied.

...Princess Luna picked the exact _wrong_ time to walk into her sister's office.

She saw a rainbow-maned cyan-coated pegasus spasming in hysterical laughter on the hardwood floor, surrounded by her insulted-looking sister and her sister's pupil who looked to be torn between crying out in sadness and crying out in rage and so was just sitting with wide eyes and a furrowed brow next to the pegasus.

Time then stopped as Rainbow stopped laughing and coiled like a spring on her hooves, bouncing into an upright standing position right in front of Luna with no assistance from her wings. Though Luna was taller than Rainbow, the pegasus still looked down upon her with an air of disgust, and perhaps a bit of pity.

"Go away," said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight and Celestia remained in the same positions they were in before, and Luna and Rainbow didn't move either until Luna spoke defiantly from the corner of her mouth:

"No. I will not go away."

"Fine. Then you're an idiot. So noted."

Luna looked over at her shellshocked elder sister. "I believe something is wrong with Rainbow Dash," she said.

"Um..." (that was the first time any of them save Luna had heard Celestia say _um_ , and even Luna hadn't heard it in over a thousand years) "I agree with that assessment, sister."

 **Sorry this chapter is short and late. To compensate, the next chapter will be much much longer. However it will take me at least a week to finish. Thus I make this statement:**

 **The next chapter will be up Saturday, June 6th, at 8:00 p.m. EST.**


	7. Part 7

'None of this makes any sense. Rainbow Dash should have been _devastated_. _Devastated,_ but not... not whatever she is now...'

"Stop being so quiet, you stupid purple horse," Rainbow said snidely from the corner.

"Would you prefer me to think aloud?" Twilight asked. This was a test of her loyalty to her friend more than any other test had been. She was trying all she could not to simply explode at Rainbow, or whatever was left of her anyway.

"No. Your thinking is stupid too. I don't wanna hear it."

"Then I will remain quiet." Twilight noticed herself sounding like Celestia and momentarily wondered if Celestia viewed everypony else - with their normal daily conflicts and imperfections - as she was viewing Rainbow Dash right now.

"Tell me why I can't fly."

"The spell didn't work. I told you it had a very very slim chance of carrying. It didn't. I didn't expect it to. You seemed to, though." Twilight was being perhaps a bit excessively matter-of-fact, but the only reason she would have for _not_ speaking as she was would be to spare her friend's feelings. And frankly, right now, Twilight didn't notice the prismatically maned pegasus having any such feelings to speak of. There was a slight pause before Twilight asked her own question. "Why don't you care any more?"

"About flying? Because it's boring. I don't want to fly."

"Then what _do_ you want to do?" Twilight thought this question might stump Rainbow for a while, long enough for her to get a thought in edgewise, but that was not the case.

Immediately Rainbow Dash responded, "I want to talk. You won't let me."

"You want to talk?!"

"Yes. Is that too much to ask?"

"No, of course not. I was just surprised that you wanted to is all."

'Of all the things she could want, why does she want to talk? Is there something I'm missing...? I'll just have to listen to what she talks _about_...'

"I've been acting weird recently and you know it," Rainbow said, "You eye me weird and you think I'm possessed."

'How did she know that...?'

"You must be wondering how I knew that. Won't answer that. To answer your _next_ question, I am _not_ possessed. My mind is just temporarily rented out to a tenant who, just so you know, promises not to destroy anything major."

Twilight's mind immediately thought, '...So you're possessed, in other words. Just whatever demon is possessing you is doing so with your consent... and... only temporarily... _actually,_ that doesn't sound like a demonic possession at all. I mean I've never seen it but... isn't the demon supposed to force itself into someone's body? Like a sort of soul-rape? That sounds like consensual soul-sex to me. I'd have to consult Celestia though...' And further than just wanting to consult her mentor on the subject, Twilight had a nagging feeling that _something_ about this was _Wrong_ , though she had no ability to consciously put a hoof on it.

"A demon didn't possess me," Rainbow said as though that was the most obvious fact in the universe. She'd said it with a hint of irritation, as though at Twilight's stupidity (though Twilight didn't like to think of _herself_ as stupid), as though Twilight had yet to comprehend the sky was blue.

"Then what did?"

"Nothing _possessed_ me."

"Then what happened?"

"No clue. But if I had any idea I might not tell you anyway. The thing that happened to me might not want me to tell you that."

Twilight was starting to get a slight bit irritated. 'Well, it isn't a demon, so what is it? It can't be an angel. I've met angels and they don't do that. I don't know off-hoof of any other creatures that possess or take hold over the bodies of pon- _wait_. ' Her thought had been interrupted by her mind mid-sentence.

"It wasn't a parasite, perchance, was it?" Twilight asked, violently pushing as much innocence into her voice as she could muster under the circumstances. It was barely enough to keep her from sounding ticked off.

Rainbow hadn't picked up on Twilight's forced innocence, or if she had she didn't let onto it in her voice. "If it was, I wouldn't know about it since I have no clue what you mean by 'parasite'."

"A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense," Twilight recited the dictionary definition.

"Is a parasite allowed to be sentient?"

"Why do you ask?"

A shrug and an _mm-mmm_ sound accompanied by an _I know nothing, why are you asking me_ facial expression.

Twilight had to actually muster significant amounts of strength to not make an exaggerated and aggrieved sigh. "Yes Rainbow, I would presume that definition allows sentience."

"Oh. Cool. Useless, but cool. I knew I could rely on you for utterly useless information and definitions of random words, Twi." The words hurt, but the pony she trusted as a friend having insulted her like this _and then having called her the same nickname with which she had always affectionately referred to Twilight_ hurt far worse.

"You're welcome," Twilight replied with far more cheeriness than she thought she could muster, trying not to let the hurt show on her face.

It wasn't even a conscious thought that Rainbow was not herself and had been taken over by someone else, some _thing_ else. It was an assumption, one that proved to be correct, even. Twilight just couldn't accept that her friend would consciously be that nasty to somepony she was friends with, and she further rejected the idea that Rainbow would consciously be that nasty to _Princess Celestia_.

'But whoever or _what_ ever is controlling Rainbow, it seems to be very very good at analytical reasoning. It can predict my thoughts before I even think them in my conscious mind. It's really mean, but it seems to know all my weaknesses. Hypothesis: it can read Rainbow's memories and use those as holds to get to me.'

'Obvious next thought: why does it want to get to me? I can't imagine what I have that it would want. Maybe it just likes being mean for the sake of being mean.' Twilight ruminated on this thought for a moment, then shook her head within her mind. 'No, every action has a motive. Being mean for fun would mean that this thing has a strong possibility of sentience. Or, actually, now that I think about it, I know literally _nothing_ about how this creature works. It could be a pawn, or an offspring of sorts, for a larger organism that _is_ sentient. I've seen at least one other organism that creates living-but-not-independently-sentient offspring to do its bidding, but we can't assume that this creature works the same way as the Tree.'

"You're quiet," commented Rainbow, "You should die."

"Why should I die?" Twilight asked, and then she thought, 'Forget the fact that it's fairly impossible for you at the moment unless you have an Alicorn Blade and just tell my why...'

"Because you're quiet and that's annoying."

"And anything that annoys you should die?" Twilight asked, not expecting the answer she got.

"Yes."

Twilight didn't expect whatever was controlling Rainbow Dash to have the answer to this. "Why?"

It was a few moments before Rainbow responded to this, but she didn't seem to be thinking about it. Then she spoke with a strange air of purity Twilight wouldn't be able to place if she tried. "Why not?"

Somewhere, deep within a forest many hundreds of thousands of miles away from Twilight's palace was a large tree. It was not taller, but wider, than the rest of the trees that surrounded the small clearing surrounding it. Rather, the tree did not sit within a clearing so much as it sat within a crater, and at that one of its own making.

Twilight had only vague hints as to this tree's existence. And even with her assuming that it existed in the first place, she yet knew very little. She knew that it was the second most powerful being on the planet, but that was all.

 _Nopony_ other than Twilight had any clue at all that the tree even existed.

A cloud of midnight blue mist twisted its foggy tendrils around through the forest floor, the mist capable of seeping into the ground in such a way that it could traverse back to the tree without being seen by any of the numerous creatures which existed within this forest, creatures which had been enhanced by the magic that leaked from the tree like radiation from a nuclear power plant.

As the mist neared the tree, the tree began to darken. Its bark changed from black to a shade so dark that your eyes wouldn't understand what they were seeing any longer. It was no longer a tree so much as a landscape floating incorporeally around a tree-shaped hole.

The mist, surrounded by a light violet aura as it did so, got very very close to one of the roots of this tree-shaped gap in reality, but it did not dare touch that root as if in fear. It was then that the mist lifted itself from the ground and floated more freely through the air, stopping before the trunk of the tree where there were myriad odd-looking symbols. The symbols were not carved there by some woodsman. A woodsman could not carve into this tree. _Princess Celestia_ could not carve into this tree. Her long, elegant, pearly horn would sooner snap cleanly in two.

The mist lifted up three tendrils, two out to the sides like arms, one upwards like a head. The tendril facing upwards curved in towards the tree and then straightened, twice, in an odd nodding gesture (if a tendril-owning, midnight-blue, violet-aura-cloaked mist was capable of nodding). The tree seemed to shift, but not in any breeze as even a hurricane couldn't disrupt this tree, and even if the rest of the forest was flattened this tree would remain standing.

This sort of conversation that went on in incorporeal and near-imperceptible gestures between the mist cloud and the darker-than-black tree went on for some minutes, perhaps hours even, for neither the mist nor the tree had too much in the perception-of-time department, and nobody else was there to witness the event.

After the conversation ended, the tree changed to its usual color of black, taking its place in reality again. The mist sank back into the ground and slithered away.

And though a tree cannot laugh, no more than a tree can uproot itself, stand on two branches and dance a jig, if you were there and listened very, very carefully... you would certainly swear you heard a raspy voice, originating from the exact place the tree stood in the center of its small crater, and you would swear you heard it laughing.

 **The next chapter will be posted Wednesday, June 11, 2015.**


	8. Part 8

**Author's Note: Wow this has taken so long! Not the writing, I did all that tonight; but the getting around to doing this chapter! I just didn't know what to write. Further, I've been incredibly busy. Relationship drama, family drama, college work, etc. etc. stuff you don't want to hear about. Anyway, here's your chapter - albeit 4 months late.**

Rainbow Dash trotted up the stairs of Twilight's massive castle and into her room there. The door had a sign on it saying "Go Away" in bright red letters, hanging overtop of the place where her cutie mark was carved into the wood. She opened it. She walked inside. She lay down upon the bed made of soft cloud tuft, and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of tossing and turning she finally fell asleep hugging her pillow.

She opened her eyes and found herself in a dark hallway. There were candles lining each wall, but they didn't burn brightly enough to light the floor or ceiling. They stretched off endlessly into the distance towards some imperceptible horizon.

She looked at the wallpaper. There were happy-looking fillies and colts holding balloons, or in aircrafts, or flying, or levitating themselves. The sky was a bright blue. Bright enough to not quite look real.

She turned around. To her surprise, instead of another endless hallway, she seemed to be standing at the end. There was a door right behind her. It was locked.

For lack of anything else to do, but with a slight shiver, she walked down the hall.

She couldn't determine what made up the floor under her hooves. She smelled sweat, and smoke, and a pungent odor like chemical fumes that she couldn't quite place. She heard nothing, not even her hooves against the floor or her own breath or her heartbeat.

Suddenly she heard a very soft clicking noise. In any other circumstance, if her ears hadn't been so well-adjusted to the silence, she wouldn't have been able to.

Then there was a creaking of a door opening. She spun around and saw a mass of blue moving towards her at a surprising clip.

"Who... are... you...?" Rainbow asked. "What do... what do you want?"

"Brilliant questions, all around," said a raspy voice originating from the blue mist. "But sadly, I have no answers you will understand. I have no name, and no family, and no occupation. I have no inherent desires, simply a utility function. I am frankly more program than pony." As it was speaking the mist transformed itself into the form of a pony with a black coat and a blue mist-like mane; it eerily reminded Rainbow of Nightmare Moon, but the eyes were a red-violet similar to Twilight's.

"Uh, okay...? Why are you here? Where _am_ I?"

In its pony form the mist had a kinder, less raspy voice. "So many questions. That's good. First, I'm here because I'm inside you; uh, in your brain I mean. Part of your consciousness. Second, _you_ are in your bed in your room in Twilight's castle; and your brain is envisioning yourself in this hallway."

"I'm dreaming?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Oh, then you're... _oh_. Okay. Why are you in my dream? You already took over my body in the real world, why'd you have to do it here too?"

"I'm not taking over your body here. I don't know if I can. Besides... I... I'm sorry for taking you over. I promise it's temporary and I'll return you to normal soon. I'm just sick of living in that book."

"I understand. I'll be able to explain it all to Twilight later."

"Yeah, okay... could you not talk about her? I'd rather not talk about any alicorn. They hurt me, and I hate them."

Rainbow extended her forehooves. The black-coated pony accepted the gesture, walked over and hugged her. "No problem," Rainbow said into the other pony's silken mane just below her ear.

"I'm really really sorry I have to put you through all this... I'll leave soon and find... I dunno, somewhere else or someone else who wants to have me around... nobody seems to though..."

"You can stay. I'm sorry. I don't dislike you. I just equally don't-dislike Twi- er, my friend, and the fact that you two seem to be actively doing your best to destroy each other puts me in a hard place. I love having you around, Mia. I just also love having my friend around."

"As soon as I find out how to get myself a permanent corporeal body, instead of just infecting hosts like some parasite, I'll leave you alone to be with your friend." Mia broke the hug, and backed away a few steps.

"You know my friend could probably help you with that."

"I accept no help from alicorn scum- um, I mean... thanks but no thanks. I can do it myself."

"You sure? She wasn't the alicorn who imprisoned you in that book-"

"But she's the pupil of the alicorn who did! Further, she's actively doing her best to keep the truth about magic a secret, which means that in proxy she's a driving force behind keeping me in that book!"

"No need to explode. I gotcha. You've got it covered."

"Thanks. I appreciate it, Dash- really. I'll, uh, let you wake up now. It's almost 7am."

"Okay. Talk to you tomorrow night."

 **I'm not sure when I'll be able to upload another chapter - I hope it won't be another 4 months. However I can't make any promises. Anywhoosies, have a great existence until then, people ^^**


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